


Liberties

by centrifuge



Category: Star Trek (2009), Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Board Games, Cultural Misunderstandings, Drunken Accidental Telepathy, M/M, Romantic Comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-22
Updated: 2011-03-22
Packaged: 2017-10-17 05:08:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/173225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/centrifuge/pseuds/centrifuge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Kirk precipitates an unintended cultural exchange, Spock develops a drinking problem, and the crew stages an intervention, but not the kind Kirk was expecting.</p><p>This work now available in Chinese: http://archiveofourown.org/works/8742430</p>
            </blockquote>





	Liberties

**Author's Note:**

> It is probably a bad thing when an author feels the need to preface their work with an apology. So I will preface it with this instead:
> 
> No red shirts were harmed in the making of this story.

            “How did I drink this much?” Kirk squinted at his admittedly impressive tab, which he was pretty sure was in either a different language or entirely misspelled. If he focused hard enough the letters swam together to cohere briefly into names of cocktails before swimming away like pretty little dot-matrix fish.

            “You made some mention earlier that it would not be a bender if you drank it all in one night,” Spock, Kirk’s designated killjoy, signaled to Bones that the evening was over by a faintly alarming slice of his hand across his throat. Kirk stood, sat hard and sloppily, thought about trying to stand again, and thought better of it. Spock pinned him to the barstool with a firm hand to his shoulder.

            “Wait until the doctor gets here. Any attempts at unaided movement will almost certainly result in injury.”

            “Mine or other people’s?”

            “The odds are 80 to 1 that it would be both.” Kirk looked down at his thigh, where the ache of a monstrous bruise was just beginning to make itself felt through the alcohol, and remembered.

            “Lieutenant Finnegan,” he said somewhat indistinctly, but Spock heard him nonetheless, and somehow, knew exactly the wrong things to say.

            “It was not your fault, captain. She knew the risks going into the mission and she made her own decision to do as she did. She will be remembered as a hero.”

            “Nobody should die to save my life,” Kirk said woodenly.

            “This is one of the burdens placed upon you as a captain of distinction. People will die for you. You must bear up under this and accept the honor they have bestowed upon you.” Kirk sagged as though Spock’s hand on his shoulder was the burden itself, and Spock lightened his touch. Now unsteadied, Kirk slumped toward Spock and leaned against his shoulder.

            He was quiet up until the point when Bones appeared in the crowd at a distance of ten yards, at which point he spoke into Spock’s shoulder. “Don’t you dare die for me, ever. That’s a direct order.”

            “Please do not force me to disobey a direct command,” Spock murmured, not caring whether or not he was heard over the cacophony of several hundred people and loud, thwangy music.

            “I mean it.” Kirk’s eyes were closed. “You’re worth ten of me. I shouldn’t even _be_ here.”

            “Some wake,” Bones said as he sidled up on Kirk’s other side, pulling Kirk’s left arm over his shoulder. Spock stood and did the same with his right. “Come on, you sad sack of three hundred credits’ worth of booze. Let’s get you all nice and detoxed.”

            “Can you make it so I don’t remember this in the morning?”

            “If anyone deserves not to remember this in the morning, it’s me and green ears over there.” Spock hadn’t realized he was blushing, but then he remembered Kirk’s heat against his side, and the muffled vibrations of his speech, how uncomfortable it made him feel to have physical contact that didn’t involve sparring, and all of that made sense.

            Kirk stumbled down from the bar, and the three of them filtered out into the street with the other patrons, many still in uniform, some stumbling away on their own, but most strung together like Christmas lights, unified in their reminiscence.

 

            Kirk fell off of the transporter pad and swore. “Was there always a step down there?” Scotty nodded with a look of complete understanding and hid a sad smile. “I’m just going to lay here for a bit, okay? Don’t mind me.”

            “Here comes the hypospray,” Bones sang, a split second before pressing it to Kirk’s neck. “There.” The fluidity of his form shrank to tension and pain as the detox hypo took effect. Spock watched his face change from oblivion, to anguish, to shutters, and to steel, before relaxing into a deceptively easy look of equal parts chagrin and charm.

            “Bones, Bones, _Bones,_ ” moaned Kirk a few moments later. “Why do you let me do this to myself?”

            “Because, to date, it’s your least self-destructive habit.” Spock wondered what habits the doctor could possibly be referring to, and wondered if he was egregiously overstepping his companionable but distant relationship with Kirk by overhearing this. He stepped back, but the movement caught Kirk’s eye and he called out.

            “Hey, Spock.” He held out his hand. “Help a brother out?”

            Spock looked at that hand, thought about where it might have been, and grasped him by the forearm instead, steadily hauling him to his feet. Kirk shook loose, offered him a rueful smile, and said “Debriefing at 0800” before walking out. Spock looked back to the doctor as he spoke.

            “They’re not mine to tell.” Spock would be offended that the doctor would believe him callous enough to ask, but he supposed that it was only fair to be curious. “And if you’re wondering if any of it makes him unfit as a commanding officer, it’s all in his medical file.” Spock nodded and figured that if Kirk ever saw fit to tell him then he would be honored by that trust, but that it was irrelevant to his assessment of his character at this time. Grieving the loss of a colleague – who died to save you – is only a logical response. The self-loathing that Kirk was doing an excellent job of hiding, however, was not.

            No, he decided, allowing the captain to continue in this vein would only negate the good he did of his own accord. James Kirk was already a good captain, and would, Spock was sure, become legendary, in time. If he did not prove to be his own undoing.

            Spock knew that Kirk had kept a courteous, even affable distance from him, even though they spent as much time together off-duty as the captain did with the McCoy. But he did not confide in Spock as he did with the doctor. They had long been friends, and the doctor had never done some fairly despicable things (though, admittedly, under duress and well within the scope of law) to him, either. If he was going to help Kirk he would have to find a way to facilitate intimacy, confidence, and trust.

 

 

            Jim was surprised as anyone when Spock sat down across from him in the mess during breakfast. It had been two days since the wake, and the detox, a hot shower, two nights of okay sleep, and the rigors of commanding a starship had brought him back to speed quickly. Very little was said regarding the incident, and his bruises had begun to fade to a nasty yellow color that didn’t really suit him. Not unlike certain uniform colors. Ahem.

            Yes, Spock had sat down across from him with a bowl of fruit and legumes. It looked perplexingly revolting but had a sweet smell. Kirk pointed his fork at it and frowned, his mouth too full to speak.

            “Adzuki beans are cooked sweet and make a pleasing first meal,” Spock said. “Good morning.”

            “’Morning.” Kirk swallowed. “You don’t normally eat in here. Is your replicator broken or something?”

            “No. I merely wished to spend more time in your company.” Kirk dropped his fork. Okay, what? “We work together on a daily basis, and I know regrettably little about you.”

            “There’s not much to know, really, other than what’s in my file.” Kirk began to feel fairly alarmed. Something was wrong, horribly wrong. Spock was making small talk. In the cafeteria. This felt so much like the beginning of a bad office sitcom prank that he had the shameful urge to flee. However, Spock looked genuinely puzzled by Kirk’s dismissive reply, and looked as though he was about to start apologizing, so Kirk hastily added, “I play Go, I guess. Everyone knows my chess ranking, but no one knows I play Go. Less popular than chess, probably.”

            “I have not heard of this game.”

            “It’s similar to chess but the rules are much simpler, and the game much older. It’s very organic, has a much longer play time, and I think that the gameplay emerges a board that becomes, well, beautiful.” Kirk bit back the urge to start banging his face into the table for nerding out about one of his favorite things to someone who couldn’t care less.

            “It sounds fascinating. Would you be interested in teaching me?”

            “Uh, sure,” replied Kirk, too surprised – and too excited, really – to turn him down. “It would be great to play again. Sulu knows the game, but he doesn’t enjoy it as much as I do, so we play fairly infrequently.”

            “When are you next free?”

            “Tomorrow evening?”

            “I am free as well.”

            “Well, great!” Kirk gave a terrified half-smile, wondering what the hell he was getting himself into.

 

            The _kaya_ board and _yunzi_ stones in their jujube bowls were a luxury in space, as they took up a great deal of room and did not store well. The bowls lived on a shelf, with the board standing on edge behind it, creating a sort of abstract art piece, secured in place to insure against the myriad happenstances that caused all aboard to go flying in every direction. Kirk took them down from the shelf and arranged them on the table as his door chimed. “Enter.”

            Spock came into the room and stopped short, looking around. “This is the first time I have seen your quarters,” he said.

            “Sorry it’s such a…” Kirk looked around his Spartan quarters, the lack of personal touches that most people require to feel at home in space. “…Vacuous wasteland,” he said lamely.

            “I find the simplicity of it… soothing.”

            “I do too.” Kirk looked unconsciously toward the nearest outer hull, shook his head, and gestured for Spock to have a seat.

            “The rules, as I said, are pretty simple. Each player places a stone at one of the vertices on the board. This is a turn. The object is to create eyes, or strongholds of your stones that can’t be captured or invaded by your opponent’s pieces. This is called creating life. The player who wins is the one with the most open territory, or living space.”

            “The phrasing you use is interesting. You speak as if they are organisms.”

            “It’s the way it’s always referred to, I suppose.” Kirk smiled. “You’ll see.” He placed a stone on the board, holding it between the back of his index fingertip and the pad of his middle finger. The stone hit the board with a pleasing clack. “Currently this stone has four liberties, or places where it can join with like stones in order to defend against capture. To capture is to take away all liberties from a group of stones. Conversely, to live is to give your opponent no liberties to invade with.” Kirk removed the white stone from the board. “Am I making sense so far?”

            “Indeed, it is perfectly logical.” More so than chess, Spock thought to himself, as those rules now seemed arbitrary in comparison. “Let us begin, and you can teach me as we progress.” Kirk still looked ill at ease, so Spock, after a moment’s hesitation, allowed his control to slip slightly and smiled very slightly. Kirk seemed to smile back unconsciously, then frowned and looked down at the board, handing Spock the bowl of black stones.

            “Black moves first, and is usually taken by the lowest-ranked player.”

            “What is your rank?” But Kirk gave an absent hum and said nothing.

 

            The game progressed slowly, with Kirk stopping to explain patterns and rules as they went. Spock watched as the board went from being a scattered array of black and white stones to a complex, interlocking series of geometric shapes that did indeed seem to live and die like the groups of microscopic organisms under the lens in his lab.

            It was well past midnight when Spock conceded, having exhausted nearly every liberty. The game was lost to him far before that point, but he found himself reluctant to end it. From the pleased look on Kirk’s face, he’d lost by far less than expected.

            “It doesn’t surprise me that you’d pick this up quickly. Did you enjoy it at all?” Kirk began to place his white stones back into the bowl at his side.

            “Yes, Captain.” Spock, following his example, did the same with his stones. “When can we play again?” Their hands brushed as they cleared the board, and Spock felt a brief surge of excitement.

            “Anytime you want. I’d rather do this than, well, pretty much anything. Almost,” he amended with a smirk and a sizzling gaze that left absolutely no doubt as to what he was referring.

            More than drink? Spock wondered to himself, and resolved to test this hypothesis at the next opportunity.

 

            Tragedy is not an opportunity. Spock knew this. He also knew where he would find the Captain.

            There was no wake this time, and no scheduled shore leave, so when there was no response to his hail at the door, Spock used his override command and entered. At first, the room seemed empty, but the light to Kirk’s bathroom was on and the door was open.

            “Captain?” Spock called tentatively, apprehensive at his own intrusion but needing to be there anyway. There was a heavy silence, then some shuffling, a clink, and:

            “That you, Spock? C’mere.” Kirk was wedged between the sink and the toilet, his knees up to his chin, a bottle of rye in one hand and his PADD in the other. “Just writing up my mission report.”

            “I can take care of that in the mo—“

            “I’m trying to figure out whether I should phrase the cause of death as ‘gross negligence of a commanding officer’ or ‘he was a red shirt, these things just happen.’ They should really stop sending us those.” He looked defiantly up at Spock. “And I intend to finish this bottle.” Spock heard the unspoken _Are you going to judge me for that?_ And sat down opposite him.

            “It is customary to drink to fallen comrades. Would you begrudge me that honor?” Kirk squinted at him, then slid the bottle across the floor.

            “I thought alcohol didn’t have any affect on Vulcans.”

            “That is true, but I am half-Vulcan.” Spock considered this. “So I do not know, actually.”

            “You never tried? Not even for science?”

            Spock took a drink from the bottle, grimaced, and shook his head. “I had always assumed.”

            They passed the bottle back and forth in silence for a while, and Spock felt himself responding to the alcohol in his system. “Interesting,” he said at last.

            “Having an effect?”

            “Yes.” He rested his head against the wall behind him and closed his eyes. “My perception of the temperature of the room has changed. It now feels warmer. My muscular system feels slow to respond.” He tilted his head back. “It also appears to be affecting my mental facilities, although to what extent is yet unknown.”

            _Looks amazing like that…want to lick his throat._ Spock opened his eyes. “Captain, could you please repeat that? I do not think I heard you correctly.”

            “I didn’t say anything, Spock.” Kirk slid the bottle back to him. “Maybe alcohol gives Vulcans auditory hallucinations.”

            “That seems unlikely.” Spock settled his head against the wall once more, letting his frame relax as his system processed the alcohol. Kirk was looking at him through half-closed eyes, lips slightly wet with rye, unshaven and looking like everything popular earth culture would have Spock believe is sex on legs. “Other things.” He hadn’t meant to say that, but it was true. Intoxication led to lowered inhibitions, and Spock had never understood that term until now. He could feel the air crackle between them, possibly due to colliding storm fronts of pheromones.

            “Other things?”

            “Go,” Spock said, remembering with relief his original intent.

            “But I live here,” Kirk said. “Oh. Oh!” He stood up, lurching forward and falling toward Spock. Spock steadied him with a hand on his hip, Kirk’s crotch halting scant inches from his face. He felt himself flush.

            But Kirk was drunk and oblivious and excited to play Go, and grabbed Spock’s hand, pulled him up to standing, where they were both weaving and bumping into each other and breathing the same air and Kirk _would not let go of his hand_ , and he was absolutely sure he was blushing now.

            “I’m very drunk,” said Kirk, who was now Captain Obvious of the starship Alcohol.

            “I know.” There was a long, innuendo-laden pause as Kirk worked out what came next.

            “So we’ll call it a playing handicap.” He smiled winningly at Spock’s collarbone.

            “I am drunk as well,” pointed out Spock, who was pointedly refusing to acknowledge the filthily intimate things Kirk was doing to his hand, possibly even unknowingly.

            “So we’ll both play with a handicap!” Kirk dragged him, but gently, to the shelf. “Help me.” Spock went to lift down the bowls, but wobbled a bit, so Kirk planted his hands on his shoulders, which didn’t really help at all. He then slid them down to Spock’s waist, and then around to his chest, at which point Spock felt the body behind him press firmly up against his, and he froze. Warm breath ghosted his neck.

            “Glad you’re here,” Kirk said, and Spock literally felt the sentiment behind that statement.

            “Jim…” Spock trailed off, aware of his uncanny ability to say utterly the wrong thing. He turned in his arms, putting a little distance between them. Kirk’s eyes were searching his face, found his own eyes, and held. “I grieve with thee,” he said softly, at last. He clasped Kirk’s forearms in a more dignified embrace.

            “I know.” Kirk solemnly did the same. “I _know._ ” Spock felt the sorrow in him ease, and saw it mirrored in the easing of lines he was sure Kirk didn’t have in his face.

            They set up the table, bumping into each other, hands everywhere, touching and being touched more than anyone but his mother and Nyota had done. Spock found that it didn’t bother him nearly as much as he thought it would, especially when drunk, and he looked back at the not-quite-empty bottle on the floor and called it a win.

 

            Spock woke shivering.

            “Room, raise temperature ten degrees,” Kirk said sleepily. “Here.” An arm came around him, along with a thick blanket.

            “Why am I in your bed?” Spock said around the banging of his pulse in his skull.

            “You said you were too tired and too drunk to walk back to your quarters.”

            “They are across the hall,” he pointed out.

            “I know.” Spock thought he could hear a smirk.

            They were quiet as the heat came on and Spock’s shivering ceased.

            “Who won?”

            Spock felt the smirk against his shoulder, this time. “Me.”

 

            Things changed after that. Kirk seemed to accept that Spock’s personal space had been appropriated for his own use as well, and apart from some appalled looks from the bridge crew (which Jim was either oblivious to, or studiously ignoring), things continued on as before, but with a Kirk who would touch his wrist to get his attention, or duck under his arm to stretch out across his science console and push buttons when he was too impatient for Spock to do it for him. Spock, acutely aware of every touch, never returned the gestures in public, but to do so in private seemed to please Kirk enormously. Their Go-playing sessions continued, and as Spock improved the games began to last longer, at times spanning an entire week of evenings.

 

            It was only a short matter of time before a cultural misunderstanding with a new planet led to live fire. Kirk and his away team were huddled behind an immense urn, a little singed but mostly unharmed. Two red shirts – the odds were not looking good, Kirk realized with dismay.

            “Spock on my nine, Yin and Indri on my five. Shoot to kill. No heroes. Am I clear?” They all nodded. “Good. Break!”

            They cleared the main complex, Yin taking a shot to the arm but still standing. Indri took Yin’s phaser and shot cover fire, scattering wide to force their enemies to take cover. They ran through the gate and out onto the plateau, Spock hailing the Enterprise as they neared the edge, which sheared down into a sea far below. Kirk eyed the complex warily as no one pursued them on foot.

           Something shot up and over the edge of the complex. They moved through the air like kites, agile and angular. As they bore down on the group, the shapes became clear. “Gliders,” Kirk groaned. “Oh, fuuuuuck.”    

            “Scotty is locking onto our signals,” Spock said. Then, between the space of one breath and the next, he noticed a beam headed toward their group, calculated the trajectory, and side-stepped in front of Kirk. The light filled his vision. _A win,_ he thought.

            “Sp-“ The transporter engaged.

 

            “—ock!” screamed Kirk as Spock staggered off the transporter pad, gasping and clutching at his chest. “Fuck! What part of ‘no heroes’ don’t you understand?!” He hailed sickbay. “Bonesnowgoddammit!”

            “I’m here,” Bones said, scanning Spock with a tricorder. “He didn’t get hit. He’s got shock and he’ll need some bed rest while his nervous system restores itself, but that’s all. Talk about a close call.”

            “I need to meditate,” Spock said, but no one was listening to him. He looked down at his chest. There was a hole in his shirt but no mark on his chest. He looked up at Kirk.

            Kirk was furious.

            “Captain—“

            “Spock. Never—“ a tremor ran through him and he tried again. “Never trade my life for yours. You won’t get your money’s worth.” He spun on his heel and stormed out of the room. Awkward silence reigned.

            “His way of saying he loves you,” Bones explained. “We never listen to him, and he never learns.”

            “He must,” said Spock simply. “He must understand.”

            “Good luck.” Bones shrugged. “But I hope you win, all the same.”

 

            Spock meditated until he was unable to deny his exhaustion, then lay on his bed, unable to sleep. His clock read 0307 when the door chimed. He sat up.

            “Enter.”

            The silhouette in his doorway was unmistakably Jim’s.

            “Jim,” Spock began. “I was standing too close to you to create the momentum needed to knock us both out of the way in time. I would not unnecessarily place myself at risk.”

            “You don’t need to apologize to me.” He came in and Spock saw that he had been drinking. _I should have been there to stop him._ He sat down on the edge of the bed. “Spock… you are… The only person I can be _real_ with. You don’t ever have to apologize. But you can’t save me.”

            “If it is within my power to do so, I will never stop trying.” Spock took the risk that he didn’t understand the gesture, and covered Jim’s hand with his own, lacing their fingers together. Jim clutched them so tightly that Spock closed his eyes.

            “I’m not an idiot, Spock. I can run algorithms in my head. But for some reason I can’t—I don’t _get_ it, I can’t understand a universe without you. Do you understand? It doesn’t parse. You are in the universe, or the universe does not exist.”

            “Look at me.” Jim did. Spock looked feverish and his eyes burned. “I understand,” he said harshly.

            Oh.

            “Ah,” Kirk sounded sheepish, “Okay, see. _I_ have legitimate reasons, and—“

            “Jim.” Spock squeezed his hand, his eyes drifting shut again of their own accord. “Stop. Talking.”

 

            “The difficulty I am experiencing in focusing on the game is directly correlated to the amount and rate of alcohol I have consumed.” Spock turned his black stone over and over in his fingers, the other hand resting somewhat protectively around the base of a bottle of vodka, a gift from Chekov, whose eyes had lit up when Spock mentioned that yes, he did partake of alcoholic substances. Kirk had been sneaking drinks from it all night but Spock, liking the cold crispness of the drink, had had the majority and was, as a consequence, losing badly. He briefly pondered the possible illogic of cutting his losses and using his remaining liberties to recreate a portion of an ancient Vulcan tapestry pattern.

            _I love when he smiles… He only does that around me. I’m pretty sure I’m the only person that ever gets to see this._

“Vulcans do not smile,” Spock said, opting for the tapestry design and placing his stone. Kirk captured five of his stones, creating the first pillar.

            “I didn’t say that they do.” Kirk squinted at Spock. “Are you okay? You’ve had a lot of vodka.”

            “You did not say anything?” Spock pulled the bottle closer to his side of the table as Kirk’s hand chased it. “Also I am quite fine. Your concern is noted.”

            Kirk snorted. “That was a terrible move. That’s the only reason I’m asking.”

            “I have my reasons.”

            _Oooh, mysterious Spock. He’s so funny but he’d take it wrong if I laughed._

            “I would not.” Spock’s eyes widened. “Oh my god.”

            “Did you just say--? Waaaaaait a minute. You—You—“ Kirk grabbed the bottle and scrutinized it. “What’s in this? If Chekov’s put some kind of drug in this I’m spacing him. I don’t even care that he’s the most brilliant mind of his generation.”

            “No. It is the alcohol that seems to have the side-effect of enhancing my telepathy. Which explains the headaches,” he added.

            “No, that’s just a hangover,” Kirk said fondly, before shaking his head a bit and reaching across the table to grasp Spock by the lapels, only to recall that the uniforms had none. He sat back down.  “Spock, you can read my mind? What am I thinking about right now?”

            “Pants,” Spock said immediately.

            “Okay, something harder. How about now?”

            “You’re extrapolating our current point in space in relation to the nearest four star systems with humanoid life based on our charted trajectory and the length of time we’ve been travelling, factoring for the variable—“ Spock winced at the stricken look on Kirk’s face. “I apologize.”

            “Okay. Yeah. God.” Kirk tilted the bottle back and drank, and Spock followed the motion of his throat. “No, don’t you see? This is _awesome._ ” He stared at Spock, waiting for him to cotton on, and grinned.

            “Captain, if I am reading you correctly… You are insinuating I should become a high-functioning alcoholic, so that I can read people’s minds at any given time.”

            “We could start a club! Power Drinkers Anonymous!”

            “Not only is this an unhealthy idea, but it is also a gross invasion of others’ privacy. Vulcans avoid touching others for this very reason.”

            “You don’t seem to mind with me,” Kirk said with only a hint of petulance.

            “Well.” Spock fiddled with the bottle cap, and very pointedly set it down while silently reprimanding himself. “That is different.” He doggedly laid down another black stone, triggering the mass capture, by Kirk, of seventeen of his stones, creating the arch.

            “Spock, at least hear me out.”

            “I will not betray the already tenuous trust the crew has in me.” He lay his left hand flat on the table, sliding it forward. His right hand lay down another stone with a clack, capturing a single white stone, thereby creating the desert rose beneath the arch, in the center of the board. Kirk retaliated by taking a further five stones, creating the last pillar.

            Spock looked up when the tips of Kirk’s index and middle fingers gently bumped his.

            “We could save lives,” he said. His fingers slid between Spock’s and his lips parted. Spock tried very hard not to read his thoughts.

            “I concede.” Spock’s eyes fluttered closed.

 

            Which is how Spock found himself surreptitiously taking nips of vodka from a flask while Nyota translated Kirk’s welcome-to-the-Federation speech to the Xortians. She caught him at it and threw him an incredulous look. Spock gave an infinitesimal shrug and flicked his eyes to Kirk. With a single glare she managed to express the fact that they were certainly going to be discussing this after the mission. Spock heard all of this anyway, and looked away, feeling guilty.

            Spock nearly staggered when a psychic blast of hatred crashed over him, and he looked for the source. The regent was shaking Kirk’s hand and smiling. Then he stepped back, revealing the small, concentrated source of loathing in the form of the crown prince, who was, incidentally, glaring vehemently at Kirk. The prince hadn’t reached a state of majority and wouldn’t for some time, but accompanied the regent who acted in his stead, so as to become accustomed to matters of state. All this was in the pre-mission report that Spock himself had drafted and distributed to every member of the away team. He was cradling a lacquered wooden toy in the shape of some three-tentacled creature. Curious, Spock delved deeper into the child’s mind.

            Hunger pangs, boredom, annoyance, but mostly, blinding, irrational hatred of the kind that only a child can have. Whispers in the prince’s ear. A plot. An incendiary device.

            “The prince would like to give you a gift,” the regent was saying, and Spock’s vision narrowed down to the sight of the apple-green toy leaving the prince’s hands and being deposited in Kirk’s. With one swift movement, Spock swept up alongside Kirk, batted the toy from his hand, and lobbed it a good fifty meters away into a hedge.

            “…deprived as a child, and as such has a very negative reaction to them,” Kirk was hastily explaining, while Nyota translated with barely-concealed what-the-fuck written all over her face.

            “Rrr,” said Spock, feigning animal aggression as best he could, something he never saw himself doing when sober. He tried to look irrational and imposing and succeeded in looming over the prince and regent, who were looking between each other, nonplussed.

            The treaty signed, and one hefty shipment of dilithium later, the party beamed back aboard the Enterprise.

            “Captain, scanners indicate that at the instant the transporter activated, some remote device triggered an explosion with a ten-meter radius approximately fifty meters from the point you beamed from,” Sulu reported, frowning in concentration. Kirk turned slowly to look at Spock and their eyes met. Spock nodded.

            “You don’t say,” Kirk said.

 

            Spock went into the ready room with Kirk hot on his heels, slamming the door behind him. “Now don’t tell me that wasn’t worth it.”

            Spock attempted to parse the double negative, weaving slightly and coming to rest against the table. “Affirmative?”

            “No one got hurt!” Kirk grabbed Spock by the shoulders excitedly, shaking for emphasis with the word “hurt.”

            “It is true,” Spock said thoughtfully, “although I wonder how events will play out when the prince assumes power, as opposed to having the matter come to a crisis today.”

            “It could go either way,” Kirk agreed, releasing Spock’s shoulders and starting to pace. “He has time to grow up and interact with the Federation, and make the decision on his own. And we’ll file a confidential report on all of this, send it back home, and make sure that we’re ready when the time comes.” He grinned at Spock. “We’ll leave some bits out, of course.”

            “That is a shame. It would have been fascinating to hear how you chose to explain that coincidence without engendering severe consequences for both of us.”

            Kirk laughed. “Your sarcasm is not up to its usual standards, Spock, but I’m charmed anyway.”

            Spock inclined his head and received a hefty dose of the spins. As he swayed, Kirk was instantly at his side to prop him up. “A little too much, huh? Come on. Let’s go steal some detox hypos from sickbay and get you back in working order before the crew notices.” Not wanting to risk nodding again, Spock made a murmur of assent. Kirk walked him to the door, but paused before opening it.

            “Spock,” Kirk said softly, resting Spock against the closed door and bringing up a hand to cup his shoulder. “You don’t have to do this. I don’t want you to be… To do anything that’s not… you,” he finished lamely. “I don’t want to change you.”

            “That is inconvenient.” Spock looked down at him and the corner of his mouth curved upward, just the slightest bit. “As such an event occurred approximately 2.54 years ago.” There was a brief pause as Kirk did the math, then his mouth shyly curled into a sweet, wistful smile that Spock had never seen before.

            “Awww, Spock. Us meeting may have changed you, but it made me a better man.” He laughed a little, looked away, and took up his place under Spock’s right arm once more. “You think I’m bad now, you should have seen what I was like before. Ready to go?”

            “Yes.”

 

            “Fuck Bones and everything he stands for,” Kirk said vehemently in the darkness. They were propped up against one another and a bulkhead far away from the rest of the crew, and far away from the repairs taking place on the part of the hull that was breached a grueling thirty-eight hours earlier in a skirmish with some raiders. They were covered in grime, and Kirk had red on him, some of it his own. After Bones threatened to relieve them both of duty if they didn’t get some sleep, Kirk wordlessly looked at Spock who had said something like “The odds of that happening are a bajillion to one” which, in Kirk’s book, was probably the most awesome thing he’d ever said to Bones, and they both turned and walked away together, as far away from everything as they could.

            “Prolonged sleep deprivation is not unlike the effect of overindulgence in alcohol,” Spock noted wearily, shifting so that Kirk’s head rested against his chest instead of his shoulder. Kirk responded by nudging his shoulder against Spock’s arm, forcing him to lift it and allow Kirk to splay his arm more comfortably across Spock’s leg. Spock set his arm down again, effectively linking their arms together. Kirk’s hair dusted his chin and itched, but he was too tired to move.

            “I always fall apart on you, Spock.” He sighed. “You don’t deserve this. I’m sorry.”

            “If it were a burden, the logical thing would be to tell you so, and remove myself from the situation.” Spock tilted his head down and brushed his lips against the hair there, but not enough so that Kirk would notice. “It is not so.”

            “Yeah, but, it isn’t fair.” Kirk started to sit up, presumably to leave. Spock trapped the linked arm and pulled him firmly back down.

            “It is my honor,” Spock slipped his hand into Kirk’s, “to have such a deep measure of your trust.”

            “It is my honor,” Kirk replied flippantly, the effect diminished due to exhaustion, “if you would keep doing whatever it is to my hand, because it feels awesome.” To his dismay, Spock realized he had been stroking his fingers along Kirk’s, and blushed to the tips of his ears in the darkness.

            “It is a gesture of closeness,” he heard himself say faintly, “among brothers, friends, and lovers.”

            “I like it.” Spock felt Kirk smile against his collarbone and his heart raced. “I’ll have to remember…” Kirk’s body became minutely heavier against him, and he knew he was asleep.

            “This is most unfortunate,” Spock whispered to himself.

 

            Spock was having a crisis, which was approximately thus: in the means thus far to achieve his primary goal, that is, to achieve the trust and confidence of his Captain to better support, guide, and care for him, he has also relinquished a modicum of his much-valued self control.

            He withdrew from his normal social activities, deeming Kirk stable enough to withstand the change in routine, and resolved to spend his spare time in meditation.

            He observed the following:

 

  

  1. Kirk had been drinking less. 
  

  2. Spock had been drinking more.
  

  3. Kirk discovered Spock’s enhanced telepathy brought about by alcohol intoxication.
  

  4. Said enhanced telepathy saved a good portion of the crew’s lives, including Kirk’s.
  

  5. Spock craved the intimacy he had stumbled into with his commanding officer.
  

  6. Spock has, in part, deceived his commanding officer into engaging in more intimacy than he is aware.
  

  7. All things considered, the balance weighed heavily toward the positive, despite the fact that he would have to tell Kirk the whole truth soon, and
  

  8. Spock didn’t miss his self control as much as he thought he should.
  



 

            This gave him pause. “I am not ashamed of my mother’s heritage,” he said aloud, dousing the incense. “Am I?”

            “I don’t know, but it doesn’t seem like you to be ashamed of anything.” Spock started.

            “Captain, apologies. I was not expecting your presence in my quarters, both in part due to my deep meditative state and the locking mechanisms on my door,” he said somewhat snarkily, stretching and standing up. Kirk was leaning against the wall, his hands in his pockets, humming something unrecognizable but unmistakably off tune.

            “Hmm, well. You know I like a challenge,” he patted the door console fondly. It blinked the baleful red of a machine well-hacked. “Okay, I’m not here to be creepy. Well, not _only_. I just wondered if you were avoiding me for some reason. I promise I won’t make you drink or play Go, you know. We could just hang out.”

            “I am amenable to either of those things. I merely needed some time to, as you say, ‘get my groove back.’”

            “Okay.” said Kirk. “You should probably stop letting Chekov teach you English idioms, though.”

            “I see.”

            “Anyway, I’ll leave you to it. As long as you’re not mad at me or anything.” And that hesitation was Kirk’s way of showing he needed confirmation.

            “No, Jim. I am, and shall always be, your friend.”

            “Likewise,” Kirk chinned at him and smiled. “G’night, Spock.”

            “Goodnight.”

 

            Kirk left the room and cursed himself. Lame, lame, lame! And _creepy!_ He couldn’t have looked more desperate if he’d tried. He cringed as he slinked into his own quarters like a soundly-chastised dog with a leg-humping problem, feeling every bit as perverse and guilty and completely unable to stop himself.

            I didn’t realize you two were so close, Bones had said. Well yeah, he’d responded, excited and anxious at once, we blah blah blah all the blah time and he even blah blah blah with me, only now everything is blah and he won’t blah blah blah—

            Jesus, you codependent little freak, Bones had replied after a saintly period of patient listening. Please don’t tell me you break into his quarters and spy on him while he’s meditating.

            And then he’d done just that. Partly because Bones had piqued his curiosity – he’d never seen Spock meditate, because when they hung out they mostly did the things Kirk liked to do.

            No, strike that. They _only_ did things Kirk liked to do. Only Spock seemed to like doing them too. Right?

            Kirk remembered having chicken pox as a kid and being told that even though scratching the boils felt godly you can’t because it would turn you hideous and pock-marked. He remembers them saying similar things about masturbation to him as well, but after he looked chicken pox up on the internet and saw before and after pictures, he was suitably horrified into sitting on his hands for an agonizing three days.

            But there was no established protocol for “what happens when you break into your friend’s room while he’s meditating and watch” so Kirk followed the protocol that dictated nearly every aspect of his life: when it itches, scratch.

            And Spock, bless him, had been pretty normal about the whole incident. Aside from the completely-out-of-place idiom, for which Kirk was pretty sure he’d ruptured something holding in the laughter, things had gone about as well as he could have hoped. Spock needed to “get his groove back”? Maybe Kirk could help him.

            _Hey Spock,_ Kirk wrote on his PADD. _While I was being creepy and sneaking into your quarters I couldn’t help but notice that meditation looks, well, fascinating. Would you be open to teaching me sometime?_

            Kirk hit send and held his breath.

            _Absolutely,_ came the almost instantaneous reply. _When?_

_Tomorrow evening?_

_Affirmative._

            Kirk placed the PADD on the table next to his bed and stretched out, smiling and feeling light years better.

 

            “The reason we meditate,” Spock began, settling into the lotus position and waiting for Kirk to do the same, “Is to clear our minds of emotional content, to empty it completely of thoughts, and then let those things filter back in one at a time, in order to better analyze and understand them, and doing so, better understand ourselves.”

            “Sounds good to me,” Kirk said. “This position isn’t terribly comfortable.”

            “It is not meant to be. The mind focuses on the body and maintaining the position, serving as a locus for the mind and spinning all other concerns away.”

            “Interesting.”

            “Do you wish to continue?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Very well. You must also measure your breathing, finding a natural rhythm, not unlike the cadence to which you breathe when asleep. Breathe deeply and circularly, do not pause at either end.”

            Kirk closed his eyes and tried to think about how he breathed while sleeping. He thought about sleeping and found his breathing evening out naturally. As he kept this up, the rich, spicy smell of incense filled the air. It made his mind feel like it was thinning out, flattening to a plane, and skittering away to the edges of his perception.

            He was unaware of how much time had passed before Spock said, “Very good, Jim. A commendable first attempt.” He opened his eyes and looked at the clock. Forty-five minutes had passed.

            “That was incredible.” He turned and looked at Spock with wide eyes. “I don’t think I’ve ever sat that still for that long without being bored to tears. But I wasn’t. It was like being somewhere else, somewhere vast and open.”

            “This is only the first stage of meditation, but many people find that this much alone can be beneficial to the mind.”

            “I can see why. I feel more relaxed than I have in days.” _Since we fell asleep in that hallway together,_ his mind offered, and he pointedly ignored. “You’re a great teacher, you know.”

            Spock looked pleased, despite no outward change in appearance. “You have shown great aptitude.”

            “Yeah, well. Once I get interested in something I take it seriously.” He stretched out his legs. “So you’ll have me back, then?”

            “Naturally. It is advantageous to both of us to continue.” A beat passed, and Kirk wondered if they weren’t talking about something bigger than meditation, but then Spock stood and went to make tea. Kirk shook his head, clapped his hands on his thighs, and stood with a bounce.

            “I guess I should –“ Kirk began awkwardly, just as Spock said “Would you like some tea?”

            “Umm, yeah, actually. Tea would be great.”

            And tea was great. It was spicy, slightly sweet, reminiscent of oranges, and oddly, tingly. And then his throat started to close off.

            “Captain.” Spock rose from his chair. “Are you choking?”

            “Allergic reaction,” he wheezed. “Bones.”

            Spock hailed sickbay, then scooped up Kirk in his arms and ran down to the transport. Bones met them with a gurney and a hypospray of epinephrine, which he pressed into Kirk’s thigh rather than his neck, and then rubbed in to help it work faster. “Damn fool,” he said, as Kirk’s breathing eased, his face still swollen beyond recognition. “You’re allergic to ninety percent of the universe, and it’s only quarter matter. You’d think if you’re smart enough to captain a starship you’d carry an EpiPen.”

            “I agree, Captain.” Spock helped Bones steer the gurney into sickbay. “What if I had not been with you?”

            “Well, he wouldn’t have been drinking that tea, for one. He’s on a very strict diet.”

            “I was not aware.” Here he glanced sharply down at Kirk, who could barely see him through his swollen face. “I would like a copy of this list, doctor. This will never happen again.”

            “What are you, my mother?” Kirk spluttered. “Both of you?”

            “Jim,” Spock said quietly, and Kirk went still, looking up at him and seeing, for the first time, what Spock looked like when he felt helpless and afraid. “You will not come to harm if it is within my power to prevent it.” _And even if it isn’t_ , he seemed to be saying, _I’ll pull some impossible out of my ass just to prove how right I am._ Of course, Kirk was flying high on chemicals and a lack of oxygen so he might have been making that up, but he could see what Spock was getting at. So he slipped his hand over to where Spock’s was resting against the gurney railing and rubbed his two first fingers against Spock’s. Spock tinged green and nodded, just the slightest bit. Kirk lay his head back again and let Bones slip on an oxygen mask.

 

            “A very strict diet of grain alcohol,” Kirk said, emphasizing by pointing at the list. “No gin, though. Juniper gives me a rash.”

            “Interesting.” Spock slipped the glass from his hand and took a sip. “What did you call this one?”

            “Scotch. Filthy, isn’t it?”

            “It is… complex.” He took another taste. “And disgusting.”

            “It grows on you.” And indeed it was, the warmth building in his chest like a cozy double sunrise in winter. He took another sip.

            “It says you can eat plomeek.”

            “What? No it doesn’t. Give that here.” Kirk tried to grab the list, but Spock held it out of reach.

            “It certainly does. Which proves, Captain, that you lied to me.” He looked down at Kirk with what could only be construed as a patronizing shake of his head. “I am disappointed but unsurprised.”

            “You are so mean to me,” Kirk said. “Mean, mean, mean. Making me eat plomeek and holding things out of reach and TALKING LIKE MY MOTHER.” He jumped, not actually managing to grab the list but succeeding in putting all of his weight on Spock, who had all of his weight on the desk, which tipped them both backward in a heap.

            “Ow.” Kirk groaned.

            “Hmm.” Spock shifted slightly so that Kirk was straddling his leg and not digging his shoulder into vital organs, pushing the desk out of the way with his free foot. Somehow he’d managed to keep the scotch in the glass and the PADD containing the list in the other hand, above his head. Spock offered Kirk the scotch and he took it, taking a gulp and resting the glass and his chin on Spock’s abdomen. “Your mother was mean to you?”

            “Yeah, I don’t want to talk about my mom right now,” he buried his face in Spock’s sweater, the one he usually wore to Kirk’s quarters. Spock made a small noise that wasn’t quite a word. “Can we talk about something else? Anything else?”

            “We could talk about why you are not getting off of me.”

            “Because you’re warm and soft and I like you.” Kirk tilted his head up to squint at him through the glass. “Please never make me say that again.”

            “It is taking you less to get intoxicated lately,” Spock murmured, reaching out to touch an errant tuft of golden hair.

            “You probably think that’s a good thing.” Kirk closed his eyes and leaned into the touch.

            “It is a logical proof that it is more beneficial than becoming intoxicated only by dangerous amounts of alcohol.” There was no way for either of them to deny at this point that Spock was playing with Kirk’s hair, and Kirk was enjoying it.

            “Yeah, I guess.” One moment, Kirk was pliant and nudging his head against his hand, and the next, he’d sprung up and grabbed the PADD, flipped it around so he could tap something out on it, and shoved it screenward into Spock’s face.

            “See?” he crowed. “No plomeek.”

            “You changed it.”

            “The point is, it’s not on the list. QED.”

            Spock wanted to say, “That is not the correct use of this Latin term,” or even “I know it is on the list, I have an eidetic memory,” but what came to mind first was “Is that your _erect penis_ against my hip?” so he wisely kept his mouth shut, and frowned reprovingly.

            “Captain,” Spock said.

            “Yeah?” Kirk said happily.

            “I am standing up now.” And suddenly Kirk was on the floor and Spock was not.

            “Our friendship is _weird.”_

            “I am aware.” Then Spock did something neither of them expected, and smiled.

 

            “I’m going to pretend,” Kirk panted, watching his breath join the fog that covered everything below fifty meters from sea level, “that we are being sneaky down here, on purpose, and are not lost.”

            Sulu folded his sword and clicked it back into place on his belt. “I’m beginning to think that coming on an away mission with you two was a bad idea.”

            “We are not lost.” Spock tucked himself into the fold in the striated rock wall face. “We are twenty-two kilometers from the point at which we beamed down.”

            “And do you know in what direction that might be?”

            “Not…yet.” Spock stared a little more intently at his tricorder than usual. Kirk translated this as a frustrated glare.

            “Should we continue to hug the mountain, or head out into the fog?”

            “If I remember the topography of this region—“

            “You really read those pre-mission reports, don’t you?” Kirk interrupted blithely. Sulu stifled a snort.

            “—This cliff extends for a length of seven hundred kilometers before reaching the sea, to the west, and the capitol city. The apex of the cliff is two hundred and seventeen meters, approximately, at which height the fog should no longer interfere with our communication devices.”

            “So we need to find our way up. Great!” Kirk started looking for handholds.

            “Captain…” Spock tugged at his sleeve. The fog was glowing, pulsating brilliant shades of pink and orange, and it was impossible to tell how far away the glow was. “I am now aware that this fog is almost entirely neon gas.”

            “Which means what?”

            “There is an electrical storm headed our way.”

            “Shit.” Kirk spotted an outcropping ten meters up and made for it. “Come on, guys.”

            Climbing up a vertical surface is hard enough with nothing but toes and fingers to hold on with, but feeling for those holds blindly made it nearly impossible. Kirk hoisted himself up over the side of the ledge and held out his arm. “Spock!” A hand grasped his, and he pulled. “Christ, you’re heavier than you look.” Spock rolled onto the ledge as Sulu swung his leg up and over. They pulled him the rest of the way together and stood, feeling along the wall above them for holds. “Here,” Kirk grabbed Spock’s hand and put it in a firm hold. “You go first.”

            “You are faster,” Spock pointed out, finding a toehold and hoisting himself up.

            “I know.” Kirk panted, his chest heaving. “We go together or not at all.” Sulu seemed to have taken this to heart, as he was a good ten feet up ahead of Spock and moving fast. “Goddamn, he’s like a monkey,” Kirk said, waiting for Spock’s foot to clear his head by a good two feet before starting himself.

            By the next ledge, Spock estimated them at forty meters up, all of them sweating and breathing hard.

            “Smell that?” Kirk said into the milky bright pinkness roiling around them.

            “Ozone,” Sulu said. “You don’t need to tell me twice.”

            The next ledge barely fit them standing up, but the electrical storm passed beneath them in the fog, eerie glowing light boiling its way through the gasses below.

            “Wow,” Sulu said.

            “Yeah,” agreed Kirk. Spock said nothing, not even when Kirk’s fingers fleetingly touched his, slick with sweat and sliding across his like silk. He darted his eyes to Sulu to see if he’d seen, but he seemed as mesmerized by the storm below as Kirk was. Spock suppressed a shiver and turned to reach for his tricorder.

 

            The third time Kirk touched him inappropriately in public there were definitely witnesses. Everything had been going as usual, boldly going where no man et cetera, which, today, happened to be directly into an oncoming ion storm, whereupon one moment Spock was there, and the next he very much wasn’t.

            Kirk had seen tornados touch down and annihilate towns, make people disappear. He knew that the center of a cyclone, like the eye of a hurricane, was silent and still, and utterly the most terrifying part, but he’d never really understood what that meant before. There was chaos on the bridge, sparks and smoke and small fires, people running to put out the fires and help people who’d been thrown about, and Kirk in the center of it all, perfectly still, hearing and seeing none of it, deaf to everything but the roaring in his ears. He had never made a study of negative space, but now he could clearly see every bit of it that Spock had left behind.

            “What? No,” he finally said, and the sound bled back into his range of hearing. “Chekov, start tracking…” Chekov was nursing a burned arm, his console arcing and spitting sparks occasionally. “Fuck. Okay, this isn’t happening.” He paged engineering. “Scotty!”

            “Aye, Captain!”

            “Where’s Spock?!”

            “He’s not with you?”

            “Would I be calling you if he was here?”

            “I see your point…” There was a brief pause. “Looks like the ion storm caused a wee bit of anomalous behavior with our transporter, sir. Stuck him up in a Jeffries tube, along with a broken replicator that won’t stop making jam.”

            “Fucking ion storms,” Kirk said in disbelief, collapsing in his chair.

            ‘The universe’s way of saying ‘you think you’ve got everything figured out? Well fuck you, then!’” Scotty agreed. “We’ll send someone to get him out.”

            Spock appeared on the bridge not much later, shaken, sticky, and smelling of raspberries.

            “Spock!” Kirk’s chest ached at the sight of him, and he bounded up to meet him. “We thought we’d lost you.”

            “I admit that I was also concerned,” Spock said. “The odds that I would remain on the ship were approximately one billion, three hundred and seventy-two million –“ He looked down at where Kirk had hooked two of his fingers around his own and looked around at the bridge crew, who were all staring at them: Nyota aghast, Chekov and Sulu mildly bemused, and the doctor, who’d come up to treat Chekov’s burn, staring at Jim in outrage.

            “—nine hundred and ninety-eight thousand, four hundred and sixty-five to one,” Spock finished somewhat vacantly, still staring in shock at his hand. “Captain, I must ask you to desist.”

            Abashed, Kirk took his hand back, coughed, and said, “Good to have you back,” and sat down at his chair. “All right, Chekov?”

            “Yes sir. In Russia, such a wound is typical in one’s childhood.” He looked nonchalantly at the dermal generator, which Sulu was watching in morbid fascination. “Not a problem.”

            “Good.” Thus began the most awkward and embarrassing eight hours of Kirk’s life.

 

            After their shift ended, Bones and Uhura appeared to be holding court at one end of the mess hall, Sulu, Chekov, and Scotty listening rapt as they spoke in hushed tones. Kirk took one look at them and sat at the other end. Spock never showed, but Kirk figured it was only logical to take a very long shower after being stuck in a horizontal tube with an overabundance of jam.

            Kirk thought about Spock with jam in his ears, and licking them, and stared hard at his broccoli, desperately attempting to will down his erection. There was nothing sexually exciting about broccoli.

            Except it was green.

            Spock blushed green. Oh, fuck.

            Using an age-old trick employed by twelve year old boys everywhere, Kirk rose from the table with his tray at waist height, heading for the door.

            Bones appeared in the doorway, blocking it with his arm. “Jim, we need to talk.”

            “Are you breaking up with me?” Kirk flashed a cocky grin, all the while looking for a place to hide.

            “This is serious business, Jim. If you don’t want to make a scene, you should probably come with us.”

            Jim ditched his tray as stone-faced officers led him into a private conference room. Well, at least he didn’t need it anymore.

            “Captain, we’re officially bringing you up on charges of sexual assault of a fellow officer,” Uhura began. Kirk immediately began to run through a list of possible candidates and looked at her blankly.

            “You’re going to have to narrow that down a bit,” he said with an apologetic smile.

            “Spock, you moron. What you did to him on the bridge this afternoon! Poor guy’s been hiding in his room ever since.” Bones pinched the bridge of his nose. “Unbelievable.”

            “Well, he was covered in jam,” Kirk pointed out, trying to figure out what they were getting at. “You mean the handshake thing?”

            “That’s no excuse to touch someone that way without their consent.” Bones gestured with a hypo, stabbing it accusingly at Kirk. “That’s sexual assault. I can’t even believe you’d do something like this.”

            “Wait a second,” Kirk said, frowning. “Spock said it was a gesture of closeness. He didn’t say it was sexual.”

            The group around him exchanged glances. “Spock… showed you that?” Uhura said slowly.

            “Well, yeah. Remember the hull breach?” Tightness around their eyes said that they did. “Yeah, that. I was so juiced up on adrenaline I couldn’t sleep, Spock and I were –“ _Cuddling,_ his brain supplied, “—hanging out together and he started doing this thing with his fingers—“ Kirk stopped. “Are you crying?”

            “No,” Uhura said, shaking with laughter. “Maybe. Go on.”

            “And he said it was a ‘gesture of closeness between brothers, friends, and lovers.”

            “Well, he certainly didn’t lie to you.” Uhura wiped her eyes. “It’s a kiss, Jim. Spock was kissing you.”

            “Vulcan hands are telepathically sensitive,” Chekov said. “You’ll notice that Spock never slaps anyone. Also because he is not a girl,” he added thoughtfully. “He also never shakes hands. That’s a better example.”

            “Vulcan families kiss like that? No wonder they’re so uptight and weird about people seeing them show affection.”

            “No, Jim.” Bones had softened up some too, even going so far as to lay the hypospray on the table as a gesture of goodwill. “When Spock said ‘brothers, friends, and lovers’ he wasn’t referring to them separately. It’s an ancient Vulcan tradition, pre-dating Surak and referring to two people who, to one another, are all three.”

            “Uh, okay.” Kirk’s mind was racing. “So that means that…”

            “You’ll invite us to the wedding, won’t you?” Scotty said, tipping his chair back and putting his feet on the table.

 

            “Captain,” Spock said, as Kirk pushed his way into Spock’s quarters. “Please come in,” he added as an afterthought. Kirk turned and walked Spock up against a wall.

            “Question, Mister Spock.” Kirk grabbed his wrist and pinned it up next to his head, sliding his two fingers against Spock’s. Spock shuddered and his eyes fluttered shut. “What’s this?” Kirk continued the gesture, up and down, soft and gentle and somehow frightening.

            “I could not discern the best way to tell you,” he said quietly. “It is a caress.”

            “A kiss.”

            “Affirmative.”

            “Let me just get this straight.” Kirk continued the motion with his fingers and Spock’s pulse quickened. “You had sweaty make out sessions with my hands and you didn’t even _tell me?_ ”

            “Would you have let me?” Spock said petulantly, and instantly knew it was the wrong thing to say. Kirk’s eyes darkened and he pressed his body up against Spock’s.

            “Yes,” he hissed. “Fuck yes.” Spock’s hips bucked of their own accord, and in the next instant Kirk had taken a hold of his head, a thumb on the lower meld point and the rest of his hand at the nape of his neck, pulling his head forward and slanting his mouth against his.

            “Because if I had known, we could have been doing this, too.” Another kiss, more gentle this time. Spock tilted his head to deepen it, dizzy and reveling in this loss of control. Being half-human had its benefits, he decided.

             “And this.” With his other hand, Kirk flipped open his fly and had his pants undone before Spock could say “Yes,” in a voice he wasn’t sure was his own, and getting an inhuman noise from Kirk’s throat in return.

            Kirk’s hand on his cock. A gesture that Kirk no doubt knew the intimacy of now. Spock couldn’t decide whether to close his eyes or to look down and watch Kirk’s pink fingers curl around the greenness of his head. His thumb pressed against the underside of it and he groaned, thrusting up against the sensation.

            “God, Spock,” Kirk said reverently, and rested his head on Spock’s shoulder. Spock panted into his hair, the tufts tickling his lips. Kirk licked up his neck, curling his tongue into his ear, and began to stroke him off in earnest. Spock’s legs trembled. “When you disappeared in that ion storm, and then you were okay, it just, I don’t know. It fucked me up. I didn’t know it would embarrass you. I just… needed you to know.”

            “Know what?” Spock said, and Kirk didn’t answer, his face full of doubt and self-recrimination. Spock stilled Kirk’s hand with a tremendous display of willpower, and turned his face up to look him in the eye.

            “That the universe can’t exist without you.” And Spock suddenly understood.

            “Jim,” he whispered. “I know. And I, you.”

            “Inside me,” Kirk ordered, blushing for possibly the first time ever. “I know it’s a corny line, but in. Now.”

            There was some shuffling, and Kirk found himself lifted off his feet and held up against the wall by one of Spock’s arms under his thigh and the press of his body against him. He hadn’t even realized his pants had come off until he felt Spock’s fingers press against his hole and slick into him, and he threw his head back and moaned. Then Spock lined up his cock and slid Kirk a few inches down the wall, and was inside him with one smooth thrust and a grunt.

            “Fuck,” Kirk said, his head falling forward to rest against Spock’s. Spock nudged his cheek with his nose until their lips met, Kirk licking into his mouth and Spock unable to resist.

            “Inside me,” he said again, this time taking hold of Spock’s hand and holding it to his face. “I did some homework.” Spock pressed his fingers to the meld points, and looked at him, uncertain. “It’s not as good for you without this.”

            “Jim, you do not have to—“

            “It’s not about having to do anything.” Kirk said hotly, a little red-faced from having an emotionally-complex conversation with his first mate’s cock up his ass. “You think I don’t _want_ this? To be as close to you as I possibly can? I can’t get enough of you, you’re already in my head all the time. The least you could do is actually _be_ in my head.”

            “My mind to your mind,” Spock murmured, because there was nothing else to say.

 

            “’Friend, brother, lover,’ huh?” Kirk planted lazy kisses in the palm of the hand that rested on his cheek. “Is there a word for that in Vulcan?”

            “Yes,” Spock said, and did not elaborate, or move from the sticky, sweaty heap they’d made of themselves in their cast-off clothing, still smelling faintly of jam underneath the sweat. Every nerve in his body hummed with light, every point of contact his skin made with Kirk’s buzzing with a dynamo of happiness, Jim’s own particular brand of madness. Spock wondered if it was catching.

            Kirk was happy, Spock had learned. Despite the difficult times they’d faced, and the lives lost – and yes, there were threads of sadness and self-doubt – for the most part, Kirk was happier here than he’d ever been in his life. Perhaps six months ago Spock would have said he himself was no more or less content than he had been in his life, but the mass of Kirk’s happiness had created its own gravity, and of Spock, an unwitting satellite. He ran his fingers down the side fitted so smoothly to his, strumming his fingertips along the pelvic bone, and hummed low at the feedback loop of sensation he’d created.

            “Scotty was right,” Kirk said, smiling and nestling himself further into the crook of Spock’s arm.

            “He usually is.”

            Kirk did not elaborate either, and eleven months later they married in a private ceremony.

 

            “Wait a minute,” Spock said, sitting up in bed. “Computer, lights.”

            Kirk groaned and pulled Spock’s pillow over his eyes. “What, Spock? Did you leave the oven on in the lab?”

            “You knew,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “You knew all along.”

            “Knew what?” Kirk asked, yawning. “That you were the best shag in the Federation? No, but I’d always suspected.”

            “About Vulcan hands.” Spock took his pillow back and turned on his side to glare at Kirk. “About kissing.”

            “Oh, that.” Kirk draped himself over Spock and nuzzled his neck. “Yeah, totally.” His smirk bloomed into a blissed-out grin as Spock flipped him onto his back and pinned his arms down, pressing his length into Kirk’s hip. “But if you had known, would you have let me?”

 

End


End file.
